


Bet On It

by gothdeclanlynch



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe- No Supernatural, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Mutual Pining, Sharing a Bed, also persephone is alive because i said so, gansey says fuck here because i said so, i really am putting every cliche trope in this fic and nobody can stop me, or alternatively, there is a scene with panic attacks, theyre all college age here
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:47:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27554848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gothdeclanlynch/pseuds/gothdeclanlynch
Summary: “I can get a date thank you very much” Gansey stated.Adam took advantage of the declaration at once. “Want to bet?”Ronan looked entertained enough by the conversation to prop his head up from it’s position on Adam’s lap.“What are the terms?”, Gansey enquired, equally as entertained by the prospect.Adam considered for a moment before answering carefully. “You have to get a date for the wedding”.“Well, obviously”.“And”, Adam interjected, “you have to keep the date for the entire time we’re in Hawaii”.ORAdam bets Gansey he can't keep a date for his destination wedding. Gansey hires Blue to prove him wrong.
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s), Noah Czerny/Henry Cheng, Richard Gansey III/Blue Sargent, Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Comments: 11
Kudos: 36





	1. Prologue

Adam and Ronan hadn’t even _wanted_ to get married. Ronan had seen some stupid line on the back of his beer bottle advertising a destination wedding competition, and in peak Ronan fashion had decided it would be incredibly funny to enter. Ronan had found it _much_ funnier when by some cosmic joke, they had _won_ , which is why he couldn’t stop himself from laughing the entire time he was explaining the situation, eyes alight and hand squeezing Adam’s own. 

“You’ve got a very strange way of asking me to marry you Ronan Lynch”, the latter said.

The three of them had been having a quiet hangout at the Barns before Ronan had taken the competition call. Gansey watched as Ronan explained the ridiculous situation they found themselves in, and Adam watched him explain as if the man in front of them had hung the stars in the sky. He tried to ignore the pang of jealousy it ignited within him.

Ronan’s win had landed them all a trip to Hawaii in the midst of August’s tourist blitz and heat. Their accommodation had been booked for a resort that was close enough to the bustle of popular tourist spots that they could visit easily during the day but retreat to a quieter haven at night. 

Adam himself had to admit that it was altogether rather perfect, a devastating blow to his side in the “we shouldn’t get married for a competition” argument, which inevitably ended in him conceding and the plans being made for the soon approaching Summer. 

It had been a couple of weeks later, the three of them sprawled out in various places on the back porch of The Barns, with the added bonus of Noah perched on the bannister and his boyfriend Henry leaning on the post beside him, when the bet came up. Their Christmas Break was quickly approaching its end and they were all dreading their return to campus, with the exception of Ronan, who was dreading their exit. 

They had been discussing the details of the wedding when Henry brought up dates, or more specifically, whether Gansey had one for the event.

“Gansey would have to be able to flirt with people for that to happen”, Adam quipped.

Ronan let out an amused huff, partially disguised behind the bottle hovering by his face. He moved to lean closer to Adam, who seemed delighted to have earned Ronan’s equivalent to a laugh from his spot on the porch ground. 

“Or just speak without accidentally insulting them,” Ronan added helpfully. 

The event to which he was referring to was of course the week before when Gansey had unintentionally insulted their waitress at a café while attempting to get her number. He had instead gained a withering stare and possible contamination of his food. Even _he_ had to admit that he suffered from an awful case of foot-in-mouth disease but he was still incredibly offended at their lack of faith in his date gaining abilities. 

“I can _get_ a date thank you very much” he stated.

Adam took advantage of the declaration at once. “Want to bet?”

Ronan looked entertained enough by the conversation to prop his head up from it’s position on Adam’s lap.

“What are the terms?”, Gansey enquired, equally as entertained by the prospect. 

Adam considered for a moment before answering carefully. “You have to _get_ a date for the wedding”. 

“Well, obviously”.

“And”, Adam interjected, “you have to keep the date for the entire time we’re in Hawaii”. 

Gansey hesitated. Acquiring a date for the wedding was one thing. Who wouldn’t say yes to a free trip to Hawaii? But a week together was another thing. Henry had once told Gansey in his charming way that his personality “wasn’t for everyone”. Ronan had in his not charming way compared it to a cheese grater before being promptly elbowed in the ribs by Adam. 

Noah had later assured him gently that “he had good intent, he just said the wrong thing more than he said the right thing”.

Gansey was fully aware that his words were unerring tools of destruction and he was often unequipped to disarm them. He had, however, since learned to compensate with a heavy amount of politeness and charm. He just had to ask one of the nice girls who interned at his mother’s political office or one of the equally polite boys from his birdwatching club. He could do this. This was fine. 

“Okay. What do you get if I lose?” Gansey agreed, and from the brief expression of surprise in Adam’s eyes, Gansey’s agreement had caught him off guard. The surprise was quickly replaced with a smirk and a mischievous twinkle to his eyes.

“Nothing”.

“Nothing, Arizona, that is”.

Ronan barked out a laugh. Henry snickered. Noah looked at Gansey like Adam had asked him to give up his right leg. 

“God, Parrish”, Gansey winced. 

In Adam’s first year at Harvard, he had joined the Harvard Institute of Politics, a club as pretentious as it sounds which provided undergraduates of the college with political opportunities that could boost their careers. The trade off was that once every year, all of the club members (and their honorary plus ones) were invited to a Political Retreat during the summer break, to spend a weekend in Nothing, Arizona, which according to Adam featured “helpful and informative business seminars and challenging, intellectual sessions on brain power and productivity”.

According to Ronan, who had been the ‘honorary plus one’ last year, it was “a bunch of boring people talking about god awfully boring things, in a town that was as hot as Satan's armpit and whose name described it perfectly”. He had stated quite eloquently that if Adam made him go again this year, he would shove one of the conference pencil’s directly into his eyeball. 

Adam had been complaining about going alone this year but after Ronan’s review, nobody was particularly keen on going with him. Gansey wanted to go to Nothing, Arizona about as much as he wanted to listen to Ronan’s EDM music, which was suffice to say _not one bit_ . But Gansey _did_ enjoy a bet, so he toyed with the idea in his mind.

“Okay”. 

Ronan snorted. “Rest in peace man”. 

Gansey ignored him and mulled over the bet a little longer. 

“If _I_ win, I get to buy you a better car”. 

Everyone knew how little Gansey liked Adam’s Hondayota and he has been suggesting not so subtly that he should look at upgrading it, now that he was travelling between Henrietta and Harvard. However, since the car upgrade came down to a matter of finances, which was always a point of contention between the two of them, the conversation had since been abandoned a while ago. 

Adam was quiet for long enough that Gansey feared he had crossed a line. He was on the verge of offering a panicked apology when Adam spoke. 

“Okay”. 

Even Ronan seemed surprised by this because his eyes shot to Adam’s. “No fucking way. You wouldn’t even let _me_ replace that dumpster fire.” 

Adam’s careful expression was quickly replaced with that of a confident smile. 

“Nobody’s replacing my car”, he said. “Because _I’m_ going to win”.

\------------------------------------------

Gansey had successfully avoided asking anyone to Hawaii. Part of it came down to him being incredibly busy with classes, but mostly it was just that he was very good at overthinking everything and not very good at asking people out. He was sitting on his monthly video call with Henry, Ronan and Noah, heavily considering asking Henry if he knew anyone who was free, when Adam joined the call and the dreaded bet was brought up.

“So who’s the lucky date you’re bringing?” Gansey watched Adam as he spoke, weaving between students as he walked from his class to his dorm, and vaguely distracted. The distraction did not however prevent Adam from noticing both the hesitance in Gansey’s face and his lack of answer. 

“You _do_ have a date right? We leave for Hawaii in two weeks.” 

Gansey’s answer was interrupted by a cruel laugh from Ronan and Henry’s input was a quiet “Yikes”. 

Adam sounded almost sympathetic when he said “Ganse?” If you don’t have one we can call the bet off?” 

Gansey had been on the verge of coming clean but the idea of calling the bet off sparked something determined albeit stupid within him. Before he even realised what he was doing he had blurted out, “I have a date for the wedding”. 

“Oh?” was Adam’s reply.

“Who?”, Noah enquired gently.

Gansey scrambled for casual. “Just some girl I’ve been seeing”.

Adam looked suspicious. “You never mentioned anyone when we called last month.” 

“We’ve only been going out since this month. It’s fairly new”, Gansey recovered fairly smoothly.

“You convinced a girl you’ve been dating a month to go on a week-long trip to Hawaii with you?” Henry’s voice boomed through Gansey’s phone speaker. “Way to go Gansey man! Always knew you had moves!”

“Hmm” Adam said carefully, before seemingly accepting the answer. “Well, I'm very interested to meet this mystery girl”.

“Can we talk about something _other_ than Gansey’s sad love life?” Ronan complained, and Gansey was saved from any further interrogation on the subject. 

It was only after the call ended a couple of hours later that it hit Gansey. He had to find a girl to go with him to Hawaii. In two weeks. And then he had to convince them to pretend like they had already been dating for a month. 

“Well”, Gansey said. “Fuck”.

\--------------------------------------------------

It turned out he could _not_ just ask one of the nice interns or one of the cute bird watching boys. At least, he definitely couldn’t one week before they left for Hawaii, which was exactly how long Gansey had stalled finding a date for the event. Everyone he had asked had politely declined the offer, as they all had a variety of other summer vacation plans. 

In desperation, Gansey had even asked his lab partner, a girl of whom he didn’t even particularly like, as she handed in her sections of assignments at the last possible second and smelled overwhelmingly of bubblegum in a way that made his stomach flip for all the wrong reasons. It turns out that even _she_ had better offers.

“Why do you need someone to go with you so badly? Going stag is always kind of a power move” Bubblegum Girl enquired, popping and snapping her gum obnoxiously as she spoke, to Gansey’s dismay. 

“I kind of made a bet”, Gansey admitted sheepishly, his cheeks heating in embarrassment. 

Bubblegum Girl eyed him carefully. 

“You already told them you have a date didn’t you?”

Gansey groaned. “Is it that obvious?”

She shrugged. “You could try Craigslist. Lotta weirdos there who will do pretty much _anything_ for money”.

“For money? As in I’d pay them to date me?”

Bubblegum Girl snapped her gum with an affirmative “You betcha”.

Gansey tried for a smile but ended up with a grimace. “No, thank you”, he said politely. “I don’t think ‘Craigslist’ hosts the kind of individuals I’d like to spend a week with.” 

Bubblegum Girl made a face. “Well, Good luck man”. She huffed out a laugh and gave a quick two finger salute as her, her bubblegum, and Gansey’s last shred of hope walked out the door.

“Craigslist” Gansey muttered to himself. “How _desperate_ do I look?”

An hour later, as Gansey sat at his computer in front of the Craigslist website, the answer proved very clear. 

He was very desperate. 

# \---------

Blue couldn’t believe her eyes. 

I mean, she knew what she was getting into when she started taking odd jobs off of Craigslist. She had formed quite the routine even, dog walking for all the busy workaholics, picking up groceries for the hermits, doing simple but tedious repairs for the elderly. Blue didn’t consider herself a jack of all trades. She had just learned to adapt and be prepared after moving out for college, and she couldn’t afford to be picky about the jobs she took. Sure, she’d had her fair share of creeps and weirdos, but she was equally prepared for that, as the mace and pocket knife attached to her keys made clear. 

Originally, she had only picked up a couple of odd jobs here and there for a spot of extra cash, but since the café she worked at had begun cutting her shifts, she had found herself searching for extra work more often than she would have liked.

But this... this was a new brand of strange even for her. 

_“Fake Date Needed for Destination Wedding, Urgently”._

“This is the weirdest scam I’ve ever seen”, she muttered to herself, but ultimately clicked on the link to read more. 

The rest of the page was equally as bizarre. 

‘ _I require a date for a destination wedding in the first week of August’._

Blue scoffed. No wonder it was listed as urgent. August was in _one week_. She read on.

‘ _Conditions are as follows:_

  * _We are to appear as a couple for the duration of the trip. No physical contact is required but I will be referring to you as my girlfriend and we will have to share a room._


  * Looking within the age bracket of 19-22, from the Seattle area.


  * Payment is to be discussed in person and will be deposited to you via cheque at the end of the trip.



Blue rolled her eyes at the idea of anyone her age using _cheques_ as a form of payment. Her eyes skimmed over the rest of the advertisement which included a phone number but curiously no name. 

Blue stared at it for a moment longer before closing her computer screen and abandoning the laptop. 

How desperate did _she_ think she was?

A day later when the café cut her shifts even further for the next week and she was sending a text to the number listed, she had her answer. 

She was _very_ desperate. 

\-------------------------------------

The mystery date had been surprisingly easy to talk to through text, in that they replied to her texts in a timely manner and were quite nice and respectful. Blue was becoming increasingly more afraid that they were a 60 year old man however, given their tendency to type in complete punctuated sentences and how often she had to google the six syllable words they would use in a sentence. 

They had asked to meet with her the next day, which would have raised a red flag for Blue if she weren’t aware of their looming time deadline . She agreed to meet them before her work shift at a café nearby. 

She found herself rereading the advertisement in hopes of gaining some information about her prospective fake date and employer, but to her dismay there was next to no information about them on the page. She hadn’t even gotten their name, which had made her stubbornly not reveal her own name in their text conversation. She was prepared to give as much, or in this case little, information as she got. 

Her biggest concern as she walked into the café they had agreed to meet up in was that this was going to be _another_ accidental sugar daddy situation. She simply was not in the mood for _that_ today. Her mystery date/employer had said they would be wearing a salmon polo (which she wasn’t even going to _begin_ to get into actually). 

Blue was relieved to find a perfectly normal looking boy her own age as she entered. In fact, “he was actually quite cute”, she thought, as she walked over to introduce herself. As cute as someone in a _salmon polo_ could look that is. 

She had announced that she would be the girl with all the clips in her hair, as it had felt like the easiest part of her outfit to describe, given she was wearing three different layered and shredded tops of varying colours as well as her black barista apron which was covered in a ridiculous amount of pockets.

His eyes sparked in recognition and he got up to greet her, but she almost wished he’d just stayed seated given what he was wearing. The horrifying polo was paired with a pair of tan chinos, which Blue had only seen on 40 year old men and rich boys. The real sin was his footwear, which confirmed his position as the latter of the two. This boy was wearing boat shoes. Before, Blue had been worried that she would be murdered by a stranger she had met on the internet. Now, she hoped he’d do it to put her out of her misery. 

He approached her just as she got to the table, sticking out a hand in greeting, which Blue took. 

“Blue”, she said in introduction. 

“Gansey”, he replied, at which her eyebrows shot up quickly before he smiled politely and motioned for her to sit. 

She regretted giving him her real name since ‘Gansey’ was definitely a fake name, and not even a good one at that. 

Before they were forced to engage in any more awkward introductions, a waitress came over and took their orders. A hazelnut latte for Blue, and an earl grey tea for ‘Gansey’. 

She worked not to roll her eyes at the order. Chinos and earl grey tea? Maybe she hadn’t been very far off when she thought he was an elderly man. 

Then the waitress was off and they were returned to their awkward state. Blue hated awkwardness almost as much as she hated chinos so she cut to the chase. 

“How does this whole thing work?” She said bluntly. 

Gansey’s calm expression morphed into one of surprise for a brief moment before he blinked and the mask of politeness returned. 

“Oh, okay. I’ll get right to it then I suppose”. 

“Essentially, I am looking for someone to accompany me to my friend's wedding in Hawaii at the start of next week.” He hesitated for a moment. 

“As my date”, he finished clumsily. 

“And you took to placing an ad because?”, Blue questioned. “Couldn’t just… I don’t know, ask someone? Normally?” Blue knew her tone was judgemental but the fact that he had even advertised a date on the internet was questionable at best. 

Gansey winced. 

“I…. tried that.” He said slowly. “Regrettably, I waited an insurmountable amount of time to ask and everyone I have since approached has been unavailable.”

Oh, so he really did just speak like that in regular conversations. 

“And you can’t just go alone?” She continued on, vaguely aware that she was acting against her own best interest with this line of questioning.

“It’s not quite as simple as that, I’m afraid”. 

He was saved from any further questioning by the arrival of the waitress with their drinks, whom she noticed he thanked graciously for their order. Well, at least he didn’t seem to be an asshole. Yet. 

Blue was not satisfied with this answer however, so she continued on before the waitress was even out of earshot.

“Simplify it for me”, she said bluntly. 

Gansey took a long sip of his tea and met her gaze, seemingly unbothered by the judgement radiating from her unrelenting stare. 

“I made a bet with one of the grooms to be, that requires me to both bring and keep a date for the wedding. It’s important I win the bet.”

Blue rolled her eyes but she was a little impressed with his honesty.

“You boys and your stupid bets. Why would someone bet you couldn’t keep a date for a wedding that's in Hawaii? I figure that would be the easiest event to get a date for.”

Gansey let out a quiet huffed laugh, which seemed to mostly be directed to himself. 

“I have had some…. issues with keeping dates in the past. It’s become a kind of running joke among my friends.”

“Clearly”, Blue deadpanned, but she let the conversation go. 

“How’s it going to work? Financially that is.”

“Oh! Right.” Gansey exclaimed, clearly relieved that she was considering the transaction at all. 

“Would five be reasonable?”, he asked.

“Five?” Blue raised an eyebrow, sipping at her latte. 

“Yes, five thousand.”

Blue choked on her drink. “I’m sorry, what?”, she sputtered. 

Gansey frowned. “Is it usually more? I’m sorry I've never really done this before.” 

Blue huffed. “And _I_ have?” 

“I didn’t mean to insinuate. I guess this is a rather unusual situation”. 

Blue rolled her eyes for what felt like the millionth time, but she let it go. 

“Five thousand is fine”, she gritted. “Is there anything I should know about beforehand? Any surprise exes? Crazy moms?”

Gansey laughed, and she hated how nice a laugh it was. “No, nothing like that thankfully. Although, if it is alright with you, I’d like for you to pretend we have already been seeing each other, as of this month.”

Blue scoffed. “You already told them you had a date didn’t you?”

Gansey nodded sheepishly. 

Blue took the last sip of her coffee and put the drink down carefully as she deliberated. “That’s fine, but if that is the case, then we should probably meet up again and go over the basics.”

“The basics?” Gansey asked.

“Yeah, jobs, school, family, so on. It’d be really weird for you to show up with someone you’ve been dating for almost a month and not know anything about them.” Blue said, rising to grab her things. 

Gansey frowned. “Can we not go over those now?” 

Blue scoffed in annoyance. “ _Some_ of us have jobs they have to get to”.

“Ahh I see” he replied. “I would be more than happy to pay you for your time if you need?”

Blue glared daggers at him. “Are you serious? God, you rich boys are so _entitled_. You think you can just pay me to spend time with you?”, she hissed.

“Well, actually…” 

She didn’t let him get any further than that. 

“It is beyond undignified for you to even suggest that right now. Besides the point, jobs aren’t something you can just not show up to. You paying me for my time doesn’t cover all the work I will inevitably not receive after I don’t show up to my shift, which you would _know_ if you had _any_ clue at all!” 

She slammed down a note on the table to cover her coffee and stood up indignantly, holding up a finger before he could speak. 

“ _I_ will message you when I am free and we can go over questions then, and _you_ should be grateful I’m even considering this.” 

With this, she grabbed her bag and stormed out of the café, hearing Gansey’s awkward “Uhh okay? Thank you?” as the door slammed behind her.

\------------------

Gansey was honestly surprised when he received a text from ‘Blue’. Definitely a fake name but he couldn’t say he blamed her given what he was asking. Between her last final and work, she was fairly preoccupied for the remainder of the week so they settled for meeting the day before they were due to leave. It was not lost on Gansey that he was well and truly screwed if she decided to back out now.

Blue didn’t finish her shift until fairly late and was responsible for closing so they decided to meet there. She was wearing a similar look to the one he had met her in, the only thing having changed being the series of layered and ripped shirts. He had to admit that although he had spent a significant portion of their first meeting utterly afraid of the angry young woman, her beauty had not been lost on him. It was still not lost on him now as she waved him to a table so she could finish closing the café, and he was more than happy to sit and read while she stacked boxes and cleared stock. 

When she approached the table, most of her original outfit was swallowed by a giant mustard sweater that she had rolled the sleeves up a handful of times, but were still long enough that they drowned her arms regardless. She slid a muffin across the table towards him and sat, clutching a muffin of her own. 

“Reject stock”, she explained. “You haven’t earned good stock yet”.

As she sat, Gansey pulled out a notebook, to which she cocked an eyebrow at. 

“Planning on taking notes are you?”, she smirked. 

“Yes”, he replied seriously. 

Blue seemed to accept this answer with an amused quirk to her lips. He had to admit he definitely preferred it to the dagger eyes. 

“So, as you’ve gathered, I work at this café. Usually mornings but they cut my hours so I pick up close shifts sometimes. I take it you don’t work”, she said pointedly. 

He scribbled down a quick note of Blue’s employment. “No”, he admitted. “I’m mostly focusing on school at the moment”. He grimaced at the thought of what Adam would say. “ _Must be nice”._

“Must be nice”, Blue parroted. 

The worst part is that it _was_ nice. Gansey was all too aware of his privilege but it certainly didn’t help him from sticking his foot directly into his mouth. 

“School?” Blue asked, offering him the small mercy of changing subjects as she bit into her muffin with far more aggression than Gansey felt the task required. 

“Yeah, I’m studying history with a focus on Western Europe and the Medieval Era”. He couldn’t help his voice jumping in excitement as he talked about it. 

Blue nodded. “Where at?”, she asked, mouth full of muffin. 

“University of Washington”, he replied. 

Blue rolled her eyes. “Of course. You would be studying at the _most_ pretentious school in the state.” 

“Well-”, Gansey met her unimpressed look and dropped the argument. “It is a _little_ pretentious yeah”, he admitted. 

“What about you? Are you studying?” He was trying to be more open-minded at Adam’s prodding so he added, “Or do your passions lay elsewhere? I know academia isn’t for everyone.”

Blue snorted. “Yeah, I’m really passionate about customer service and making coffee at 4am. No, I'm an environmental science major, over at Central.”

She must have been able to read the surprise in his face and he watched as Blue’s eyebrows furrowed and her hands clutched at her sleeves protectively. 

“Is there something _wrong_ with Central? Not good enough for your rich boy education tastes?”, she snapped. 

He held a hand up in defence . “Oh no, not at all!”, he said quickly. “I was just surprised about the environmental science major.” 

He eyed her choice of attire carefully. “I guess I assumed you’d be more of an….. artsy type”. 

Blue looked at him suspiciously and then regarded her own attire. For a moment, he was afraid he’d struck another nerve and ruined everything, but then she burst out laughing. 

“Yeah, I get that a lot”. 

Her laugh fit her perfectly, in that it was just as pretty to listen to as she was to look at. 

She rested her elbows on the table, and placed her head atop her hands, eyeing him curiously. 

“Okay, so family. Give me the rundown”, she said.

“Ah that is actually quite simple. My sister works partially in wedding planning, partially in charity events, and then partially in whatever obsession she has at the time. Right now, it’s in cat breeding.”

Blue smiled at that. “That must make for…. interesting visits”.

“Interesting is definitely a word you could use”. Gansey agreed with a quiet laugh. 

“My parents are both in politics. My father is a congressman and my mother, you might actually have heard of. She’s currently a Virginian state senator.”

Something seemed to click in her mind. “Ohhh Gansey! It’s not a fake name, it’s just your last name.”

Gansey raised an eyebrow. “You thought I gave you a fake name? That’s a little ironic don’t you think?”

Blue looked rather confused. “Why would that be ironic?”

“Blue? You can’t expect me to believe that’s your real name?”, he said. 

Blue let out a huff. “Believe it or don’t believe it. It’s my _name_. I can’t believe you thought I gave you a fake name!”

“You thought _I_ gave you a fake name”, he pointed out. 

“Oh like _Gansey_ is a normal name. How was I supposed to know it was your last name?”, she said, sounding rather agitated. 

“And _Blue_ is a normal name?”, he countered. 

“Oh, do you suppose I’d suit something else better?”, she shot. 

“I do in fact. Maybe something like…. Jane?”

Blue’s eyes flashed with rage as he realised the question was rhetorical and he had absolutely said the wrong thing. He began silently noting whether or not he had updated his will recently.

“How dare you come into _my_ café and decide you have the right to change _my_ name because the original was not _palatable_ enough for your taste”, she hissed with clear venom. 

Gansey, determined to not let their conversation end in a fight like last time, and desperate for them to get along enough for them to even _get_ to Hawaii, raised his hands in surrender. 

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry,” he said. “That was inappropriate”.

He slid the rest of his muffin over to her as a clear peace offering. 

“Truce?”

Blue regarded the muffin with a stubborn glare that had previously been reserved exclusively for Gansey, before taking it and attacking it with the same vigour as the last. 

“Fine”, she said, eyes still narrowed in his direction. “But _only_ because I like these muffins”.

They sat in a moment of silence as she demolished the rest of the muffin. 

“My first name is actually Richard”, he finally offered. 

She made a face. “Yeah, Gansey was definitely the better option there”.

He mirrored the face she made. “Ouch”, he said, but there was no real heat to it, of which she could tell. 

“So, what about your family? What should I know?”

Blue leaned back from the table and smiled amusedly. “Ahh, well _that_ is anything but simple. How much time do you have exactly?”, she joked. 

He regarded his watch briefly. “My night is entirely free”. 

She laughed at that, and he couldn’t help but notice the gleam in her eyes as she did so. 

“Well I suppose the basics are that I grew up in a family of psychics”, she said casually.

Gansey’s eyes widened in surprise. “Oh? Are you….”

She cut him off. “There is not one psychic bone in my body, no.”

He nodded, as if this was a perfectly normal conversation to be having. “That must make for an interesting family dynamic”.

She mimicked his reply from earlier. “Interesting is certainly a word you could use.”

He smiled. “Well played”. 

“Psychic’s daughter was certainly my brand at home though, yes. But, I suppose, a small town like Henrietta, it was to be expected”. 

This caught his attention and his eyes snapped to hers. “Henrietta? As in West Virginia, Henrietta?”

“Yep”, Blue let the word pop as she said it. “The one and only”.

Gansey shook his head in disbelief. “What are the chances… _I_ grew up in Henrietta.” 

Blue’s eyes snapped to his. “No way. I definitely would have remembered someone as insufferable as you”, she said teasingly. 

“Ahh, I went to Aglionby”. 

Blue scrunched up her face. “Gross. Although, I guess it does explain that. Raven Boys _are_ insufferable.”

Gansey looked at her in mock offence. “And what did we _raven boys_ do to deserve this slander?”

Blue let out a harsh laugh, that seemed to be _at_ Gansey rather than with him. 

“Besides the obvious typical rich boy behaviours?”

Gansey indulged her with a, “But of course”.

She rolled her eyes, as she so often did in his presence. “I dated one of them”.

“I take it, it didn’t go swimmingly”.

“Absolutely not”, she declared. 

“I’ll have you know, you Henrietta girls spurned some rumours of heartbreak of your own”, Gansey says.

Blue cocked an eyebrow challengingly. “Is that so? Have many Henrietta girls break your heart?”

Gansey shook his head with a smile. “Not me. But my friend has an ex referred to exclusively as “the nightmare ex”. 

“Well”, Blue declares, “I’d rather swallow hot coals than ever date another raven boy again”.

Gansey laughed at her dramatics. “Thankfully for your anatomy, you only have to pretend to date one.”

“And thank god for that”, she replied. “So what are some other basics I should know. Wait. Let me guess. You enjoy long, romantic walks on the beach and the works of Jean Toomer.” 

Gansey looked at her in surprise. “You know who Jean Toomer is?” 

Blue seemed unimpressed. “I went to public school Gansey. I’m not Amish”.

He shook his head with a smile. “Fair enough”. 

He hadn’t doubted her education, he had simply been impressed. 

“I do enjoy Jean Toomer”, he confessed. “Other basics? I’m not sure honestly. My favourite colour is aquamarine?”

“Terrible choice”, she interjected. 

“Aquamarine is a perfectly respectable colour I’ll have you know. What else? I’m very much allergic to cats but I adore them anyway. I’m very enthusiastic about history. If my major wasn’t proof enough, I also spent most of my high school years chasing a 600 year old dead welsh king. I also don’t particularly care for sports.”

“Wait, go back. What was that last part?”

“Sports? I suppose it’s less that I don’t care for them and more that they don’t care for me.”

“Before that. A welsh king?”

Gansey thought of the time he spent with his friends, chasing ley lines and obscure clues as they gallivanted across the countryside. He felt almost wistful, in a nostalgic sense. 

“Yes. Indeed”.

“Did you ever find him?”

“Sadly no”, but Gansey didn’t feel so sad about it. Not anymore. As let down he had felt, when they had graduated and nothing had come of the search, he was grateful for the people he got to know whilst searching. He hated to admit it, but he had felt thrilled in the search itself. The finding had been secondary. If he was feeling particularly introspective, which he often was, he’d note that he found far more important things instead. Friends. 

Blue’s chair scraped along the floor as she tilted back in it a little, and he snapped out of his ponder. “What about you?, he enquired. “Tell me the basics. Although I doubt there is anything basic about you.”

“Cute”, she remarked drily. “But I guess, following in your footsteps, I could say my favourite colour is green.”

“Not blue?”, he teased cheekily. 

“It’d be a little too on the nose don’t you think?” She retorted with a smile.

“Other than that I guess you could say I am rather enthusiastic about the environment. You know, saving the trees and all that jazz.” 

He watched as she spoke with vigour and without pause. He felt a stab of jealousy at her ability to speak confidently without hesitation, something Gansey had never managed to achieve in over 20 years of living. 

“Any embarrassing hobbies in your youth you can indulge me with? You know, to make up for the welsh kings.”

Blue laughed, words on the tip of her tongue, when her phone buzzed from her pocket. She picked it up and then upon looking at the time, her eyes widened in surprise. 

“Oh my god, is it really that late? Shit! I still have to stack chairs and mop before I leave for the night.”

She moved from her place at the table, rolling her ridiculously long sleeves up again. “Tragically there will be no embarrassing stories from me tonight”.

Gansey stood too. “Did you want me to help?”

Blue waved him off with a smile. “There is a complex mopping system that I do _not_ have time to teach you. But thanks”. 

Gansey frowned, not liking the idea of leaving her alone in the café so late at night. 

Blue seemed to recognise the apprehension, as she began stacking chairs on tables. She gestured to the stairs behind them and explained. “I live in the unit upstairs.”

“Oh?”, Gansey noted. “Does that get….”

“Annoying? Incredibly. But the rent is cheap”, she shrugged. 

He grabbed his belongings, which mostly consisted of a long since abandoned notebook and dawdled by the door awkwardly. 

“So…. Hawaii... we didn’t end up discussing it really.”

Blue looked over at him. “I’ll go”, she said. 

The relief he felt was overwhelming as clear by the exhale he let out at her answer. A part of him wondered however, if it was to do with the ongoing bet, or the idea of seeing her. 

She rolled her eyes again but it seemed to be less out of annoyance and more amusement. “Text me the details for the flight.” And then she was shooing him out the door. 

“Now go before I change my mind!”

Gansey laughed, opening the door to go. He paused a second time, sticking his head back through the door. 

“Thank you… Jane”. 

He ducked his head back out quickly and closed the door before she could hit him with the mop. 

As he made his way home, he thought of the Hawaii trip and smiled. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all. 


	2. Day 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blue and Gansey head off for Hawaii. There is a very awkward reunion at the airport. Gansey has a lot of facts about plane crashes. 
> 
> TW: A character does have a panic attack on a plane in this chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, I adore comments and if you want to chat about bluesey or trc, my twitter or tumblr are @gothdeclanlynch!  
> Also forgot to include the fic playlist last chapter, which can be found here: 
> 
> https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0MvvVWqvtVRVAvm0kw7txW?si=8cEJVeCBTZmYMKqjC663vw

Blue was going to  _ kill _ Richard Gansey. 

Since the moment Gansey had left the café, Blue had been having an awful time. All his charm and niceties couldn’t make up for the fact that their plane call time had been set for 7 O’Fuck AM. This was worsened when she realised that they had to be at the airport by 6 to even  _ make _ the flight. Then, because she had spent so much time  _ talking _ to Gansey, she hadn’t finished closing the café until well after midnight. 

As a nice cherry on top, the café alarm had gone off at 1AM for absolutely no fucking reason at all. So after several phone calls, a plethora of instructions, and an agonising three hours, she had  _ finally _ collapsed in her bed at 4. 

She wasn’t even thinking about Richard Gansey in her state of exhaustion, when she awoke to a series of knocks at her door. She definitely hadn’t been thinking about the fact that he was coming to pick her up for the airport at 5, when she had set exactly 0 alarms before passing out. 

So forgive her if she wasn’t overjoyed when she swung open her door and saw his brightly smiling face.

He blinked at her in surprise when she swung open the door with probably more force than necessary. She couldn’t even be mad at him for the alarm in his face. He stood, with a freshly pressed polo (ugh), clean cut jeans, and had even had the time it seems, to put a ridiculous amount of product into his hair. 

She, in comparison, had taken on the appearance of a raccoon, with clearly defined bags under her eyes from the not so refreshing 45 minutes she had acquired of sleep. Her hair was most definitely spiked up across her head, and she was wearing an eclectic series of pyjamas, none of which was her immediate priority upon being woken up at the fuck hour of dawn. 

“What!” she demanded. 

Gansey frowned in confusion, eyebrows creasing as he turned his head, as if he needed to confirm Blue was in fact speaking to him, and not someone else. 

“We have a plane?” he said. “In two hours? Hawaii?” he clarified unhelpfully. “Did you forget?”

Blue had absolutely forgotten. 

“No I didn’t forget,” she spat. 

He drifted his gaze to her attire carefully. “Ah. Is that what you’re wearing?” 

She narrowed her eyes and he spoke very quickly. 

“It’s fine if you are! Brilliant outfit choice! No judgement here! "He looked over her sweatpants and oversized jumper again. “I just wonder if it might be too hot for Hawaii".  As annoying as Gansey’s judgement was, his attempts at politely appeasing her were worse. 

“These are my pyjamas, you idiot”, she deadpanned. 

Gansey’s confused expression did not leave him. “Oh. Why are you wearing pyjamas?”

Blue rolled her eyes and groaned as she turned back into her apartment to pack. “Because  _ obviously _ I overslept”. 

“Are you sure you slept?”, he said hesitantly, moving cautiously into the room and closing the door. 

She paused throwing things violently into a pile in the middle of the room to meet his concerned look. 

She neglects to answer, instead lobbing a suitcase the size of her into the room. Gansey let her obvious exhaustion go, opting to move things from the pile into the suitcase instead. 

After she had finished throwing the items she needed in his direction (and a couple of things she didn’t just for fun), she turned back to her room, and called over her shoulder. 

“Can you zip the suitcase for me while I get changed?”

His reply was a hesitant “Uh”, and Blue turned back around to find him sitting with a pile of undergarments next to him. 

Blue snickered and stomped over to shove the items into the suitcase. 

“It’s underwear Gansey. Not a live piranha”.

After they finally made their way out of the café, with Blue insisting on lugging her own suitcase down the stairs, and Gansey wincing at every step it thumped down, she found herself planted on the footpath. 

“No”, she said. 

Gansey looked up at her from where he was opening the driver door, and raised an eyebrow. 

“No”, she repeated. “There is no way you drive this car, and there is  _ absolutely _ no way I am getting into it. 

The car in question was a monstrosity. It was clearly a ridiculously expensive vintage, which Blue already hated on principle. But it had the audacity to on top of that, be bright fucking orange. She stood indignantly with her suitcase outside of the car. 

Gansey looked between her and the car, seemingly unconcerned by her declaration. 

“Ahh yes. This is The Pig. Now if you will Jane, we are already 15 minutes late.”

Blue glared at him, the use of that nickname magnifying the rage inside her tiny body.

“I am  _ not _ getting in that car.”

He sighed, and pressed his fingers against the bridge of his nose, looking back at her as if she was a petulant toddler and not an adult woman, seemingly fuelling her anger exponentially. 

“Well”, he finally said, voice calm and even. “That is going to make catching our flight a little difficult.”

She wasn’t sure what it was about Gansey’s polite demeanour that set her off but she saw  _ red _ at his words. 

“I don’t think I want to be catching that flight with you at  _ all _ ”, she shot hotly. “In fact, I think I’m done with this situation entirely. This entire thing is ridiculous. Find someone  _ else _ to go with you on your stupid Hawaii trip!”

She knew it wasn’t fair. She had been in a terrible mood before he got there, and she was also incredibly exhausted. His polo wearing self just happened to be the perfect target at the time, and she wanted so badly for him to yell, to scream, to bite back, to do  _ something _ .

He did none of these things. He simply stood calmly and nodded once. 

“Okay”, he said, and then Blue watched as he turned towards the car and began walking over to the driver’s side door.

“What are you doing?”, she demanded. 

He turned back towards her and replied slowly. “I have to get to the airport Blue”. She tried to miss the way his voice seemed resigned, the way his eyes seemed sadder. She noticed all the same.

And all the anger left her as quickly as it had arrived, replaced instead with guilt. He hadn’t done anything to deserve the outburst, as much as she had wanted him to. She watched him get in the car. She should just let him leave. She didn’t  _ need _ the money that desperately. She didn’t need the headache that would be this trip and this man. She should just let him drive away. She wouldn’t have to think about Richard Gansey and his unusual request ever again. 

“Wait!”

Gansey paused, and she wished she had missed the clear exhale he let out. Wished she didn’t see the relief in the way his shoulders dropped. She was, however, cursed to notice these things about him it seemed. 

“I’m coming”, she announced, reluctantly lugging her suitcase and herself over to the car. 

\------

It was only unsurprising that they didn’t fight on the way to the airport because Blue had slept the entire way there, allowing herself to lean her head against the window of the awful orange car and letting the exhaustion finally take her.

She woke to the soft tap of Gansey’s hand on her shoulder, and discovered with a crane of her neck that they were at the drop off section of the airport and not the parking bay as she had expected. 

Gansey answered her question before she asked it. “I have to drop The Pig off somewhere before we leave. Do you mind heading to the meet up spot by yourself or would you rather wait for me with the bags?”

She could see the cautious way he looked at her, and the guilt from her earlier outburst lingered. If Blue were the bigger person, she might apologise, but she was only 5 feet tall. 

She scoffed instead. “I am not a child Gansey. I am perfectly capable of navigating an airport.”

Gansey accepted that without protest. “Okay, I’m supposed to meet my friends somewhere but I’ll text you the meetup spot and I’ll probably find you before they show up anyway. Ronan is not exactly known for his punctuality.”

“Why are we meeting your friends?”, Blue asked as she got out of the car, beginning to move the suitcases out of the car. 

Gansey followed her, helping her move the luggage without asking. It seemed he had learned quickly that asking Blue if she required help was like asking Orla to not draw attention to herself, pointless and rejected on principle. 

“Well, they are the grooms in the wedding Blue”. 

She muttered out a “whatever” in response. 

She knew it wasn’t intentional but Gansey had a talent for making her feel stupid for even the simplest questions she asked him. She reminded herself that she shouldn’t start another fight so early in the day. Especially in a three minute parking bay. That was just a waste of a perfectly good argument. 

When all the bags were out of the car, Gansey tied the carry on to the suitcases, presumably to make them easier for Blue to carry. She wasn’t going to  _ thank _ him for it. She was lugging all of their stuff through the airport by herself after all. The urge to struck her nonetheless.

By the time she had navigated her way through baggage check, customs  _ and _ made her way to the designated “meet up spot” (a corner by the far end of arrivals, barricaded by an endless array of vending machines), she was incredibly tired. The hour nap she had taken on the way to the airport had not dispelled her exhaustion and she was already dreaming about collapsing in bed later that night, even though it was barely morning.

It didn’t help that despite her indignation, she didn’t really know how to navigate an airport. She’d only been to this airport once before, the first time she had arrived in Seattle for school, motivated purely by her desire to put as much distance between Henrietta and herself. That had been the only plane experience she had experienced actually, which meant it took her far longer than she would have liked to locate arrivals after all, and between the walking in circles and Gansey’s heavy as fuck carry on (seriously, what did he fucking pack? An encyclopedia?), she was ready for a Nap: the remix. The saving grace of the hour turned out to be Gansey himself, who had texted her, politely asking if he wanted her to pick up a coffee for her on his way. She knew she was tired when she didn’t even fight him over paying for it. 

She had closed her eyes for just a moment, dreaming of sweet sweet caffeine when a voice woke her. 

“Blue?”

Now, Blue had been making a real effort lately to not be dramatic. Mostly because her mother had  _ told _ her that she was very dramatic and Blue was as dedicated as she was spiteful. 

So when she said that Adam Parrish was the  _ last _ person she wanted to see in this airport, she was confident that it wasn’t an exaggeration. 

Up until 30 seconds ago, she had been confident that she had left Adam Parrish, among many other things, behind in her small town of Henrietta. In fact, she had been confident that the last time she saw him, in the backyard of her house, as they screamed their way through their breakup, that that would be the last time she saw him. 

But Adam Parrish always loved to prove her wrong. 

“What are you doing here?”, he asked, rubbing his eyes like if he rubbed hard enough she would simply disappear from view.

“What are  _ you _ doing here?”, she countered. She wasn’t sure where  _ here _ even was. The vending machines? Seattle? The Earth?

Adam settled for the vending machines. “I’m meeting a friend. It’s fine, I’ll just ask him to meet us somewhere else.”

He was already attempting to make an exit, clearly not interested in spending any more time interacting with Blue, when a hand grabbed his arm. Blue hadn’t even noticed a second person but now that she did, his presence demanded her undivided attention. 

He stood just a little taller than Adam, buzzed head and scowl being the notable features Blue picked up on. The two of them seemed to be as different, visually, as night and day. Where Adam’s presence was more quiet and subtle, this man was all harsh angles and warning signs. 

She watched him jut his head in the direction of Gansey’s carry on, which Blue had since abandoned on a nearby chair. Then, like most terrible things, they all began to happen at once. 

Gansey arrived with Blue’s coffee, stopping quickly at the standoff taking place in the fluorescent glow of chip packets and soda bottles. Everyone’s eyes snapped to his, and despite the clear ominous energy radiating out of the room, his eyes lit up upon identifying the two men and he moved quickly to greet them. 

He slipped the coffee into Blue’s hand smoothly as he made his way past her and she forced herself not to think about the feeling of his hand brushing her own, focusing instead on watching as he pulled Adam and the other man into a bone-crushing hug.

“ I have missed you both tremendously!” 

She watched them get lost in a moment of greetings before the tall and intimidating one gestured back in her direction and she felt all of their attention drift to her simultaneously. She gripped at her coffee cup fiercely and stared back awkwardly in response.

Adam regarded her again with a cool but dismissive smile and said “It was nice seeing you again Blue”, his tone indicating it has been anything but that.

Gansey blinked between them in surprise, completely misreading the situation and declaring with earnest, “Oh! You two know each other! That saves me from introductions I suppose.”

Blue watched as Adam visibly paled and the smile was wiped from his face. It gave her a sick satisfaction to see until Gansey spoke again. 

He looked between them with a confused frown, and asked slowly, “How do the two of you know each other again?”

“We dated”, Adam got out between gritted teeth. 

Gansey looked quickly to Ronan, who had a shit eating grin plastered on his face. 

“Nightmare ex”, he mouthed and Gansey’s look of confusion turned into one of horror, as he seemed to connect the dots.

“Oh god”.

“Well”, Gansey said, face set into a grimace. “Blue, meet the grooms to be. Adam, Ronan, meet Blue. My girlfriend.” 

Adam and Blue regarded each other with the same horrified expression, and for the first time in history spoke in complete unity. 

“Fuck no”.

#  \--------------

Gansey was  _ such _ an idiot. It was only after a disaster that people ever noticed the warning signs and he wished it hadn’t taken participating in the most awkward conversation to ever take place, for him to spot all the clues. 

He watched as Adam and Blue sat stiffly near each other, bodies facing away from each other in what was definitely a deliberate decision. It struck him as a little funny how without even realising it, the two were mirroring each other, but he thought it best to keep that to himself. 

The clues all connected now of course. All of Adam’s complaints about his  _ nightmare ex _ : the excessive hair clips, the stubborn behaviour and the trademark Henrietta attitude, all added up to describe one Blue Sargent. This combined with Blue’s comments about her terrible experiences dating a Raven Boy added up to a coincidence at best, and their current uncomfortable situation at worst. 

Gansey had to admit that  _ someone _ out there would find this whole event remarkably funny, but he was certainly not them. He was, for once, truly stumped at what to do. Part of him even considered reaching out to Henry or Noah for advice, but what would he say?

“Hey! Quick question. What do you do if you’ve accidentally invited your best friend's nightmare ex girlfriend to his _ own _ wedding, as  _ your _ date. Oh, and she isn’t even your date actually. You are  _ paying _ her to be there. All so you can win a bet.”

Yeah, somehow Gansey didn’t see that conversation going well at all. 

He watched out of the corner of his eye as Blue fought with a charging cable, doing her best to wrangle it into submission. She hadn’t brought up the elephant in the room, and god knows he was far too awkward to bring it up. He had been a little worried (and also maybe a little relieved) at the idea of her calling it quits on the whole operation. But, she had been sitting next to him in these uncomfortable airport chairs for the better part of an hour now, so it seemed she was intent on staying.    
  


He had to give her credit for that at least. The girl was either very dedicated to the operation, or very stubborn. Possibly both, now that he thought about it.

She looked over at him exasperatedly, and Gansey realised with a flush of embarrassment that he had been staring. 

She pulled at the cord again, successfully bending it to her whims and turned to face him.

“I’m not calling off the deal”, she said, quietly enough that only he could hear her. “So you can stop looking at me like I’m about to take off in a sprint”.

He appreciated her easing her worry, but he still felt obligated to offer her an out. “I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to”, he said.

She scoffed, and muttered “I’m not afraid of Adam Parrish”.

“Oh, it is not Adam I’d be afraid of”. 

Blue looked at him and he was suddenly reminded of how tired she looked, even as she scowled at him. 

“I am perfectly capable of being  _ civil  _ Richard.” 

Gansey winced at the name, but was saved by the call to board. He held out a hand hesitantly. “Come on, you can sleep on the plane.”

She looked at his hand with a raised eyebrow, before looking over at their company and she remembered that the whole point of this was that she was here as his date. 

She took his hand and barrelled ahead, leaving Gansey to follow with a smile. 

Their peace lasted until Blue had led them to her seats, and she looked from their seats, to the first class written on her ticket, back to Gansey. 

“A little excessive isn’t it?”, she said, gesturing at the fancy seating. 

“Is it worse or better for my argument if I say that this is what I’m used to.” 

“Definitely worse”, she replied, moving to her seat. 

Her eyes were on him as he placed his carry on above them, fishing out a book before sitting back down. He met her gaze as she looked at him in mock disbelief.

“Tell me you didn’t  _ actually  _ bring an encyclopedia onto this airplane”.

He pulled out a pair of reading glasses from his pocket, unperturbed by her judgement. 

“I did not bring an encyclopedia onto this airplane”, he said amicably. “This is a book about the bourgeois and their role in feudal European society.”

“Right. Of course. Just some light reading then.”

Gansey had made it through only the introduction before Blue was asleep, her head slumped against the side of the plane before they had even taken off. She looked peaceful like that, and Gansey noted that she was a rather cute sleeper, possibly because of her inability to argue with him about something. 

He was on the third chapter when he felt her head loll back from its original position, and land on Gansey’s shoulder. He felt himself stiffen at the movement, but after a moment, it was clear she was still fast asleep and he surrendered himself to being a makeshift pillow for the flight. He did pity her neck though, given the way he could see it angled out of the corner of his eye.

After a little while, he relaxed his shoulder and tried to go back to his book. He was however, very aware of Blue’s soft breathing in his ear, and her head pressed against his shoulder, and although he read several chapters during the rest of the flight, he would be hard pressed to remember a single word. 

Their trip to Hawaii was broken into two plane trips, the first being a reasonably sized jumbo jet, but the second being a much smaller plane that carted them from Hawaii’s mainland to one of the smaller islands the resort was located on. Gansey would be exhausted by the end but was in no position to complain, as this plane would mark the  _ third _ that Adam and Ronan would be taking. He wasn’t quite as aware of how unnerving the experience was for Adam until the second plane.

Gansey had already been seated in the furthest seat of the row of three when Adam approached. 

“Not gonna help her with her bags?”, he teased, gesturing to where Blue was declaring war on both her carry on and the bag compartment above. 

Gansey shook his head and made a noise of exasperation. “Trust me, that is a fight I will lose before I even start it.”

Adam chuckled, watching her struggle with a roll of his eyes. “Believe me, I know.” He looked down at his ticket, frowning in confusion, a motion Gansey picked up on immediately. 

“What seems to be the problem?”

Adam made a noise of frustration, reading over the ticket information again. “Ro was supposed to book us together, but I think the idiot booked himself a single on the other side of the plane, which leaves me…”, he trails off awkwardly and Gansey cringes, picking up where he left off.

  
“Next to us?”

Adam grimaces. “Right in the middle of actually”. He takes his seat with a resigned finality, and searches through the seat in front's back pocket, finally pulling out airplane issued earbuds, and closing his eyes, intent on pretending he wasn’t on an airplane. Gansey thought he was handling the flights well so far, given how much he hated flying.

Blue finished battling her luggage and moved to sit down, squinting down at Adam suspiciously before sitting reluctantly in the aisle seat. 

Gansey had regrettably left his book in the upper compartment for this flight, and only made it to take-off before the sound of Blue’s rapt tapping of her fingers against her tray table grew to be too annoying, and the silence between them too awkward. 

“I used to watch documentaries about airplanes”, he said, in an attempt to break the silence. 

Blue’s tapping ceased and she propped an arm up on the tray table, turning to talk to him. 

“No offence but that sounds incredibly boring”, she deadpanned.

He chuckled. “It wasn’t about the airplanes themselves. Usually it was about airplane crashes.”

This seemed to perk her interest. He wasn’t surprised that Blue of all people would take an interest in the macabre and taboo.

“Oh?”, she said. “Tell me something interesting.”

Gansey was more than happy to indulge her, and launched into a story about an airplane crash in Mexico that had killed their at the time vice president. He had just reached the part where it turned out the pilot had been a fraud the entire time, when Adam spoke.

“Gansey”. His voice was quiet but it made Gansey jump, as he had entirely forgotten about Adam’s presence on account of how silent he was. Looking at him now however, Gansey immediately noticed his hands white-knuckled grip on the arm rests.

“Gansey”, Adam started again, voice quiet and strained. “The earbuds are to help with the change in air pressure on the plane. They are  _ not _ in fact soundproof.”

“Oh Christ Adam”, Gansey said in alarm. “Tell me you didn’t hear all of that.”

“I would love to,” Adam said through gritted teeth, hands gripping with a renewed urgency. “But tragically I am still only deaf in  _ one  _ ear.” Adam’s breathing had gotten more rapid and when his eyes opened, there was no hiding the frantic panic in them. 

“Oh god. Fuck. Adam, tell me what to do to help you”, Gansey said, panicking in mother hen fashion. 

Blue looked from Adam, panicking, to Gansey, panicking about Adam panicking, and rolled her eyes. “Oh for god’s sakes”, she muttered, before grabbing Adam’s hand and prying his nails out of his leg. 

The action was surprising enough that it halted his breathing enough as he turned abruptly to look at Blue, but soon the frantic pace resumed. 

“Adam, look at me”. 

When this was met with no response, Blue gripped his hand tighter, undeterred and repeated herself. “Adam, look at me.”

Gansey watched as he finally met her eyes, and she calmly walked him through a slow breathing exercise, counting slowly up to 5 with him. Gansey couldn’t help but be mesmerised as her calm voice directed him when to breathe in and out, speaking far more gently than he had ever seen. The routine seemed familiar for them and Gansey wondered with a hint of jealousy if they had done it before. He realised quickly that Blue’s soothing voice had eased his own anxiety and when Adam’s breathing finally evened out again, she had him run the exercise a couple more times before she was happy with it. 

Blue fished a pair of earphones out of her pocket, quickly plugging them in and handing them over to Adam. 

“Put these in for the rest of the flight and close your eyes”, she instructed. 

Adam seemed to be doing well enough for jokes as he took the headphones and eyed the music selection warily. “God, I don’t know if I can handle your weird indie music right now.”

Blue raised an eyebrow. “Weird indie music or listen to Gansey talk about plane crashes again. Your pick.”

Adam picked up the headphones and put them in without further complaint.

“Good choice”, remarked Blue, before they both settled back in their seats for the rest of the flight. Blue’s tapping returned but Gansey had learnt his lesson and kept his mouth shut. 

#  \-------------

By the time they had hunted down all their bags, gotten to the resort and organised their rooms, Blue was well and truly exhausted. Despite leaving so early for their first flight, the layover in between flights had been brutal and they ended up getting to the resort by 4. Housekeeping had rendered their room unavailable until 5, making an afternoon nap an impossibility, and Gansey had disappeared with the groomsmen on wedding related errands, so Blue plopped herself down in front of the pool and took advantage of the free time to call her maternal unit. 

“Blue!" Blue winced at the abrupt noise coming from her phone, as her mother chirped her greetings. 

“Using your psychic skills to identify phone callers now?”, Blue teased. 

“No, Orla installed Caller ID.” Maura replied. “Did you land okay? How’s Hawaii? Has that boy caused you any trouble?” 

“Just say the word and I’ll ruin his life!”, called Calla from somewhere in the background. 

Blue laughed. As unusual as the paid job had seemed to Blue when she took it, the residents of 300 Fox Way hadn’t even batted an eye at the idea. Although, I guess when your job involved psychic readings and spiritual cleansings, normal was optional.

“No, everything is fine.” Blue refrained from mentioning the Adam aspect of the situation, not keen on the idea of talking about her ex boyfriend with her mother. She was in fact, more than happy not to bring up the melodramatic teenage breakup that her  _ whole _ family had been a witness to. 

“Ahh, I see”, Maura said. It was clear she didn’t buy it but she was gracious enough not to bring it up.

“Even with that ex boyfriend there?” Calla on the other hand, was not interested in grace or tact for that matter. 

Blue made a face even though they couldn’t see. “Yes”, she replied drily. “Even with that  _ ex boyfriend _ there. Which, by the way, you couldn’t have warned me about?”

Maura made a dismissive noise in response. “You know we don’t do specifics. It was just as likely to be a surprise illness as it was an unwanted ex boyfriend.”

“Speaking of unwanted men”, Calla chimed in. “What  _ is  _ the rich boy like?” 

Blue made a dismissive noise, fairly similar to her mothers. 

“I mean, he’s a rich boy. They’re all the same brand of privilege and stupid.”

Blue didn’t even realise Persephone was within earshot until she spoke, gently enough that Blue had to strain to hear her. “I wouldn’t be so quick to judge.”

Blue rolled her eyes at the remark, but leant her head back on the resort recliner to listen to Calla and Maura discuss Orla’s latest car crash boyfriend. 

She was wrapping up the call when she saw Gansey waving out of the corner of her eye. She said her goodbyes as he walked over, jingling a set of keys in his hand. 

  
“Room’s open!”, he said with a cheery voice. 

Blue was more than happy to follow him, keen to get out of the sun and into an air conditioned suite. The suite in question consisted of a kitchen-lounge space made up of mostly cupboards as well as a fridge, coffee table, and quite possibly the lumpiest couch Blue had ever seen in her life. The bedroom connected to a reasonably sized bathroom and contained one queen sized bed. 

One queen sized bed.

She realised she hadn’t even  _ thought _ about the sleeping arrangement until now. From the look in Gansey’s eyes as he frowned between the bed in front of them and the couch in the adjacent room, it was clear he hadn’t either. 

Gansey stared at the couch and grimaced. “I can sleep on the couch and you can take the bed”, he said. 

Blue looked at him in annoyance. “Why? Because I’m a girl?”

Gansey’s expression flickered into one of irritation, before returning to neutrality, but Blue had noticed it all the same. “I’m trying to be chivalrous Jane. It’s what a gentleman would do”.

“That’s stupid. You’re paying me to be here.  _ I’ll  _ take the couch and you can have the bed. God knows I don’t think you could survive this couch anyways.”

“And what does that mean exactly?”

“It means that your poor rich boy body probably couldn’t handle sleeping on anything that wasn’t handcrafted by Buddhist Monks”. 

Gansey furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. “Okay, you lost me at the monks”.

Blue stared at him. “I’m not letting you sleep on the couch Gansey”.

Gansey stared back. “Well I’m not letting you sleep on the couch either.”

They held eye contact fiercely, waiting to see which of them would cave first.

Blue took a step closer to Gansey, daring him to back down. “Better watch out, I’m a kicker”.

“I snore”, Gansey shot back, taking a step towards her to match her own.

“Fine.” Blue took another step.

“Fine.” Gansey followed suit.

They stared at each other unrelenting. Blue realised she was much closer to Gansey than was comfortable. So close that even as she held eye contact, she could see his jaw was clenched, his eyebrows raised slightly as he stubbornly refused to look away from her. She had started with her focus on his eyes, but the deep brown of them soon became too much to look at and she found herself drifting her focus. 

_ This was a mistake _ , she realised, as she drifted from his far too straight nose, to the strong set of his jawline, to finally land on his lips. They were turned up a little to one side, which Blue had noticed he did when they were arguing, as if he had to focus on keeping his composure. They were surprisingly nice lips, plump, well shaped, and Blue couldn’t help but think about how soft they seemed. She wondered if they were just as soft to kiss.

A knock at the door startled her, and she jumped, both of them breaking away from whatever moment they had previously been so entranced in. 

Gansey went to get the door and Blue sprung quickly to the bathroom, grateful for the excuse to put some space between the two of them. 

She gripped the vanity and looked up at the mirror, noting how red her face had gotten. She was tired. She was just very tired, and losing her grip on reality. That’s why she had been staring at his lips, and thinking about how nice they might feel pressed against her own and oh my GOD, again? She had told herself very sternly to get a grip and was splashing her face with water when Gansey appeared in the doorway.

“We’re going down for dinner if you want to get something to eat?”

“No, thanks”, Blue said. “I think I’m just gonna have a shower and turn in. I’m still really tired.”

Gansey nodded. “I’ll leave the key in case you change your mind”. 

As Blue threw herself into the bed, she found herself thinking of Gansey again and hoping to God that the weird moment they’d had was the result of exhaustive delusion and nothing more. God knows this trip would be difficult and strange enough  _ without  _ her wanting to kiss Mr Boat Shoes himself. She just had to get some sleep and when she woke up in the morning, she would hate him again. Easy.

  
  



End file.
